"Yes," she added, "and in accordance with a New York custom of great
antiquity, made familiar to you, no doubt, by that grave historian
Diedrich Knickerbocker, who gives several graphic accounts of such
cloudy ruminations on the part of your city's great-grandfathers."

"I fear you think that the worshipful Peter Stuyvensant's counsellors
indulged in more tobacco than thought, and that the majority of
them had as few ideas as one of Mr. Burleigh's chimneys," said Van
Berg. "And you regard us as the direct descendants of these men,
whose lives were crowned with smoke-wreaths only."

"Now, Mr. Van Berg, you prove yourself to be a philosopher of a
modern school, you draw your inductions so far and wide from your
diminutive premise."

"Well, Miss Burton, you stand in very favorable contrast with us
poor mortals. We are going out to add to the clouds that lower
over the world, while you are trying to banish them."

"And if, after helping the children towards the close of this
dismal day, your heart should relent towards us," added Stanton,
"you will find two worthy objects of your charity."

"Oh what a falling off is here!" she exclaimed, following the
impatient children. "Knights at first, then philosophers, and now
objects of charity."

Miss Burton evidently kept her word, and told a "jolly story," for
the friends saw through the parlor windows that the circle around